Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/239

 BATTLE OF .EGOSl'OTAMI 217 tie, with the land-force disposed ashore to lend assistance ; but with strict orders to await attack and not to move forward. Not daring to attack him in such a position, yet unable to draw him out by manoeuvring all the day, the Athenians were at length obliged to go back to JSgospotami. But Lysander directed a few swift-sailing vessels to follow them, nor would he suffer his own men to disembark until he thus ascertained that their sea- men had actually dispersed ashore. 1 For four successive days this same scene was repeated ; the Athenians becoming each day more confident in their own supe- rior strength, and more full of contempt for the apparent coward- ice of the enemy. It was in vain that Alkibiades who from his own private forts in the Chersonese witnessed what was passing rode up to the station and remonstrated with the generals on the exposed condition of the fleet on this open shore ; urgently advising them to move round to Sestos, where they would be both close to their own supplies and safe from attack, as Lysan- der was at Lampsakus, and from whence they could go forth to fight whenever they chose. But the Athenian generals, espe- cially Tydeus and Menander, disregarded his advice, and even dismissed him with the insulting taunt, that they were now in command, not he. 2 Continuing thus in their exposed position, the Athenian seamen on each successive day became more and more careless of their enemy, and rash in dispersing the moment they returned back to their own shore. At length, on the fifth 1 Xcnoph. Hcllen. ii, 1, 22-24; Plutarch. Lysand. c. 10; Diodor. xiii, 105. c. 36. Diodorus (xiii, 105) and Cornelius Nepos (Alkib. c. 8) represent Alkibia- des as wishing to be readmitted to a share in the command of the fleet, and as promising, if that were granted, that he would assemble a body of Thra- cians, attack Lysander by land, and compel him to fight a battle or retire. Plutarch (Alkib. c. 37) alludes also to promises of this sort held out br Alkibiades. Yet it is not likely that Alkibiades should have talked of anything so obviously impossible. How could he bring a Thracian land-force to attack Lysander, who was on t'ie opposite side of the Hellespont ? How could he carry a land-force across in the face of Lysander's fleet. The representation of Xcncphon (followed in my text) is clear and intel ligiblc. VOL. VIII. 10
 * Xenoph. Hcllen. ii, 1,25; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 10; Plutarch, Alkib.